La Boca, La Albiceleste: Argentina vs Uruguay at La Bombonera

Words: Groundspotters

Images: Groundspotters

Argentina faced Uruguay in the South American qualification stages for 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Usually, the Argentine national team, plays its home games in the imposing River Plate stadium but, a few days before the match, Más Monumental stadium hosted a series of Taylor Swift shows.

Although the chance of this game taking place at Kempes stadium in Córdoba province had been mentioned, La Bombonera was finally confirmed as the venue to receive Uruguay.

As is customary, Argentine fans sold out the tickets in a matter of hours and began to encircle La Boca way before the 9pm kick-off.

©Groundspotters/ Terrace Edition. La Bombonera. Argentina vs Uruguay.

The world champions’ party began with the presentation of recognition by the Argentine Football Association (AFA) together with Juan Román Riquelme, current Boca´s Vice President, to Lionel Messi, for winning his eighth Ballon d’Or, and Emiliano Martinez, for having received the Yashin trophy as best goalkeeper in the world.

The match meanwhile, had more fighting than good play and lots of tactical shenanigans.

Uruguay carried out an excellent tactical approach and made lots of sacrifices to carry it out, completely canceling Argentina’s plans.

The 0-2 result in favour of Uruguay was fair and deserved and with this result, Argentina lost for the first time in qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, ending a streak of four wins in as many games.

In any case, La Albiceleste remain top of the table on 12 points with Uruguay moving up to second.

It is Argentina’s first defeat in 14 games, since losing their match with Saudi in the first game at Qatar 2022, almost a year ago.

With this defeat, Argentina lost the chance to reach the record of five consecutive wins in World Cup qualifiers that belongs to the qualification stage for the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup under Marcelo Bielsa, who is now Uruguay boss.

For its part, Argentina will have a test of character and the chance to recover from this defeat when they face Brazil in an exciting derby at the legendary Maracaná stadium.

As we know, the Argentine fanaticism for their team drifts above mere results and the immense joy of the third star achieved in Qatar will shine bright for some time yet.

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